head teachers sanctioning the disposal of children's workbooks

[bullethead]

There is no valid reason for this; so far on the TES forum, where I have put the question to head teachers about why they destroy the children's workbooks rather than give them out, none have come forward. The only replies I've had are from a TA who has to do it but disagrees with it, and a head who does not have a problem with letting the children take their books home.
Please ask your child's school's head why they weren't given the option of keeping their books if your child did not bring them home. Chances are you won't get a straight answer and they'll hope you forget about it.

SE13Mummy - I find it odd that parents would "go to the press" about the state of their children's work books. However, I would be more than happy to complain to the local press if I were told I could not have my children's work books at the end of the year, because the school wished to dispose of them... Using annoying, complainy parents as an excuse for not letting them have their kids' books just seems to me like the excuse of a lousy headteacher.

As a teacher, I hate the fact that I am not allowed by my HT to send children's books home. Professionally, I would find it useful to have the 'best work please, your parents will see this' incentive all year round, rather than just before parents' evenings. Morally, I agree with those who feel the work belongs to the children. However, I respect our HT's right to make that decision based on her many years of experience of running a school. HTs deal with so much more than is ever visible to parents: they are not just line managers of teaching staff, they are like general managers of a medium sized business, with the added stress of often being key players in dealing with distressing child welfare scenarios. Add to that constantly changing goalposts, the knowledge that you will be out of a job if your results slide (which, of course, HTs influence, but can in no way control) or Ofsted, over the course of a two day inspection, deem you to be failing, and it is an immensely stressful job involving an unimaginable number of decisions. On that basis, I can understand why a HT might choose a course of action which is unpopular, but which leads to one, predictable type of complaint, rather than multiple, diffuse and possibly malevolent complaints against individual teachers.

On that basis, I can understand why a HT might choose a course of action which is unpopular, but which leads to one, predictable type of complaint, rather than multiple, diffuse and possibly malevolent complaints against individual teachers.

But it's a rather particular way to protect yourself which arises from happenstance about how primaries operate. It's not an option open to secondary heads, because books inevitably come home for revision and homework, and yet the situation appears to be managed. Yes, parents whose whole life revolves around which reading scheme band their only child is on have probably calmed down or gone private by the time they're in secondary, but I suspect the concerns owe more to long-established but unevidenced custom and practice than to anything more well thought out.

Some schools' decisions made depend on where they are in the OFSTED cycle. We were inspected in September so the current year's books did not have enough evidence in them. Inspectors asked for all the previous year's Maths and English books! Judgements on the quality of teaching are now made on a combination of the lesson observations and a book scrutiny.
That said, I would imagine that the previous year's books could go home at Christmas if parents wanted them.

We continue to use key books the next year - Maths, English, Topic, Science, RE - and then keep the books for a further year after the final entry so that the child's progress can be scrutinised at any point.

This is not just for Ofsted - we have termly Pupil Progress meetings, and if, for example, there is a gap between the previous year's assessment and the next year's, then we can go through the books and look at whether the 'falling back' is real, or an assessment artefact, what might address the issue etc etc. We keep all books because in e.g. writing we would not just be looking in the English books, but at all forms of cross-curricular writing as well.

We send 'show' work home - art work, display pieces of writing etc, and all books are available for all parents' meetings as well as during a summer 'open evening'.

If a parent wanted the books after we had finally finished with them - and for some subjects that might be 2 -3 years after the initial work done in them (so for example in RE, the Y3 book might continue to be used in Y4, then kept for Y5 for tracking as above) - then we wouldn't have a problem releasing them. But in general we have been met with 'why would I want this old tat?' so we tend to dispose of them.

(We can't just keep selected books. Ofsted, and our Pupil progress meetings, have asked for specific books by child's name as from the data they might be investigating particular performance issues related to particular groups of children. If I have only kept the books from selected children, I can't respond.)

We continue to use key books the next year - Maths, English, Topic, Science, RE - and then keep the books for a further year after the final entry so that the child's progress can be scrutinised at any point.

It's amazing how secondary schools manage to function at all, isn't it?

Secondary assessment seems to be much more based on 'summative' assessment - tests, key pieces of work etc - and those are wholly absent from DS's books as they are completed on paper or in test books that ARE retained by the school.

In primary, much more use is made of continuous 'formative' assessment, looking at a range of work that may be across different subjects - even e.g. the Year 6 writing SATs results are taken from a range of work that should be drawn from across subject areas.

As a result, the approach to books is be very different - surely it would be more surprising if it was the same?.

(So in secondary, the 'final leaving test' - GCSE / A-level - is primarily summative, and any other pieces of work which contribute to them are clearly separable from 'normal day to day work'.

In primary, the 'final leaving test' - KS2 SATs - for writing is based on a wide range of work, which is not always separated from normal day to day work, and teacher assessment of other subjects are equally based on day-to-day performance in the classroom.

Therefore, in the years leading up to those 'final points', the approach to assessment, and 'book keeping' reflect this difference....

Tbh, I am more saddened by the secondary approach to asssessment through 'high stakes' tests than I am worried by primary's wish to assess across a broad front of all that a child creates.)

My DD is in Yr 4 and we have received her workbooks home at the end of every term/year at Infant school (Yr-Y2). We are not due to get her Yr3 books home until later on this school year as they were some of the ones kept back in case Ofsted wanted to see them.

I must admit that I haven't been through them checking the teachers were teaching her properly as I assume (perhaps naively) that they were!

I had a parent who came in and complained that she was unhappy with a level I had put upon a piece of work in her child's literacy book ( which she had seen at parents evening where all books are on display). She had looked the criteria up on the internet and disagreed with my judgement so wanted it changed! I was quite happy that I knew what I was looking for and declined. She then complained to the Head. Books didn't go home at the end of that year!

What a stupid way of dealing with one obnoxious parent, spanieleyes - I am getting really fed up with the notion that some schools deem it acceptable to treat all parents like unreasonable idiots. It is patronising and what's more, if a school expects the worst, or acts like it expects the worst, from ALL its parents, then it bloody well deserves to get it. If teachers treat the children in the school in the same way: ie treat them all as obnoxious troublemakers, then they would justly be roundly condemned as being an awful school.

I have been given my children's books a couple of years down the line and was fine with that. I would be livid if a school kept my children's work just to destroy it. That's not saving it for Ofsted, is it?

In fact, I have a lot less sympathy for teachers who claim they are treated like idiots by government if they just pass the compliment on to all parents. Treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself, please.

Rabbit, I'm with you, tbh.

If a school isn't prepared to defend its teachers' marking to parents, then I feel that tells you something about the school.

Send the books home with a brief overview of the marking policy, fine. Or keep them for a defined period then check whether they are still wanted by parents (as I have said, in our case it does seem to be that once they are 'releasable', parents don't want them, though they enjoy getting the 'display quality' work back as soon as we take the displays down). But not releasing them because parents may query them - what does it show about the school if they are worried about that type of query?

(I get DD's books from her primary, in general. Their marking policy is very different from my school's, and apart from an occasional green-eyed 'humph' I just accept that that difference exists)

I've only had to do dispose of children's work once. It was an acting head who we had in place for one school year. It broke my heart seeing books in a skip. I actually couldn't bring myself to dump my classes work in the skip. I asked the caretaker to do it for me.

The children work so hard and we encourage them all year to take pride and to have a love of learning. It's tragic to throw it all away. Devalues the message we give them daily.

Perhaps the OP could create a survey monkey to find out if this is a widespread problem.

FWIW - we always get ours back eventually and I've never had any particular concerns over the quality of marking or comments.

Good grief, I had no idea that this was even allowed.

My parents are moving house and finally kicking the last of their children's belongings out. I went to stay a few weeks ago and one of the boxes was all my school exercise books that my mother had kept. It was really fun to look at the pictures and read the stories and projects (and yes we might have had a bit of a look to see how big the difference was between my niece's work now and mine and my siblings at the same age).

I will be asking DD's school what their policy is tomorrow and if it's to scrap and/or burn then I will definitely be having a very stiff word with one of the governors (we're married so there will be no escape!)

rabbitstew - I agree that it seems odd but there is a very vocal group of parents at the school who've gone to the press previously over lesser things so the HT is, not unreasonably, trying to protect himself and the school from such things.

My own children's school have no such excuse for chucking out the books - the only press coverage has been vomit-inducingly positive.

SE13Mummy - tbh, I think the HT is playing into the parents' hands. I don't see how a parent complaining to the press that the school doesn't know how to mark children's work properly and is now destroying the evidence is going to help! The only way to protect yourself from unreasonable parents is to be the reasonable one and patiently explain the school's marking policy - if it can be defended. If it can't, then maybe better to destroy the evidence.

DCs school destroyed their books.
DD won a prize for her art work but the book went in the skip at the end of term (in full view of the parents and children) along with everybody elses

knowing this, with DS, we started sneaking books home all through year 6
but DDs drawings are gone forever

DCs school destroyed their books.
DD won a prize for her art work but the book went in the skip at the end of term (in full view of the parents and children) along with everybody elses

Some schools are just vile, aren't they?

DD won a prize for her art work but the book went in the skip at the end of term (in full view of the parents and children) along with everybody elses

What an awful thing! Despite my anger with my DC's school I haven't told the kids about it. I don't want them to know how little their hard work is valued. To skip prize winning work, along with everyone else's, just sends such a negative message to the kids - yes, we want you to work really hard, do your best, try harder, and then we're going to take all that hard work and effort that you did, and bin in front of your face! That's how much we value your efforts!

To be honest, I would have been tempted to skip dive - it's not confidential waste if it's in a skip. Once the books have been sent (secretly) for incineration, there is no way back from that.

I would have been in that skip like a rat up a drain pipe!

fascinating post & discussion

thanks OP

Can I just say not all parents are concerned in the slightest about leveling

I want to keep my girls work because it's really fun to compare my work at a similar age (which my dear Mum lovingly saved) to their work. It's sort of a family tradition - books come out at Christmas/ summer and we have a laugh about my sloppy handwriting/ misspelled words and issues with the x7 times table. We look at school photos and report cards. We talk about our childhoods and listen to Grandpa talking about walking to school 'uphill both ways'.

I think schools forget that parents, Aunties/ Uncles and grandparents love this kind of thing.

My DD2 wrote a lovely poem about a trip to see her Aunt for homework in her log and I desperately want it back. I've written to the school 3 times asking for it and am still waiting.

Reading this thread - I'm now a bit frightened about what's happened to it.